Apple urged to withdraw 'out of control' AI news alerts

Apple is facing fresh calls to withdraw its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) feature that generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.

The product was designed to summarize breaking news notifications but in some cases invented completely false claims.

The BBC first complained to the tech giant in December that its news coverage was being distorted, but Apple did not respond until Monday, when it said it was working to clarify that the excerpts were generated by artificial intelligence.

Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told the BBC that Apple needed to go further and remove a product that he felt was “clearly not ready”.

Mr Rusbridger, who is also a member of Meta's oversight committee, which reviews appeals against the company's content moderation decisions, added that the technology had become “out of control” and presented considerable risks of misinformation.

“Without big American companies stepping in and using it as a test product, trust in the news is already very low,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the world's largest journalists' unions, said Apple “must act quickly” and remove Apple intelligence to avoid misleading the public – echo Previous calls from news agency Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Without Borders).

NUJ general secretary Laura Davison said: “In this day and age, it has never been more important to get accurate reporting and the public cannot second-guess the accuracy of the news they receive.”

Médecins Sans Frontières also said that Apple’s intervention was not enough and once again demanded that the product be taken offline.

British Broadcasting Corporation complain Last month, an AI-generated headline summary incorrectly told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.

Apple's AI incorrectly summarized BBC app notifications on Friday Claims Luke Littler wins PDC World Darts Championship Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal came out as gay just hours before the match.

This marks Apple's first official response to concerns expressed by the BBC about the errors, which appear to originate from within the organization's apps.

“These AI summaries from Apple do not reflect – and in some cases outright contradict – the BBC's original content,” the BBC said on Monday.

“It is critical that Apple urgently addresses these issues because the accuracy of our journalism is critical to maintaining trust.”

The BBC is not the only news organization affected.

November, ProPublica reporter Highlight Apple AI incorrectly summarized an alert from the New York Times app, suggesting that the app reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

A further inaccurate summary of a New York Times story appears to have been published on January 6, related to the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot.

The New York Times declined to comment.

Reporters Without Borders said the false AI-generated headlines about Mr Mangione in December showed “generated AI services are still too immature to provide the public with reliable information”.

On Tuesday, the company said that Apple plans to update the feature to clarify when notifications are aggregated to users via artificial intelligence and “doesn't address the issue at all.”

Vincent Berthier, head of technology and press at Médecins Sans Frontières, said: “It simply shifts the responsibility to the user, who in an already confusing information environment will be asked to check whether the information is true.”

Apple says its update will be released “in the coming weeks.”

it has Said before Its notification summaries – which combine previews of multiple recent app notifications and rewrite them into a single alert on the user's lock screen – are designed to allow users to “scan for key details.”

“The Apple Intelligence feature is in beta and we will continue to make improvements with the help of user feedback,” the company said in a statement on Monday, adding that receiving summaries was optional.

“Software updates in the coming weeks will further clarify when the displayed text is a summary provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report issues when viewing unexpected notification summaries.”

This function, and other tools released as part of a broader suite of AI tools Launching in the UK in December. It only works on iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max phones running iOS 18.1 and later, as well as certain iPads and Macs.

Apple isn't the only company to roll out generative AI tools that can create text, images and more based on user prompts, but the results vary.

Google came under criticism last year for its AI Overview feature, which provides a written summary of results information at the top of its search engine in response to user queries. produce some unstable reactions.

A Google spokesperson said at the time that these were “isolated examples” and that the feature was generally working well.